(Washington, D.C.) – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today encouraged Congress to switch from an annual to a biennial budget cycle.

“The annual budget process is an all-consuming enterprise that leaves little time for oversight,” CCAGW President Tom Schatz said.  “Biennial budgeting would encourage accountability and restrict Congress’s opportunities to spend.”

Twenty-one states now practice biennial budgeting.  In the form favored by CCAGW, Congress spends the first session establishing a consensus on budget goals and funding levels.  The second session is reserved for oversight.  The plan would include mechanisms to control supplemental bills.  Increased oversight of programs would mitigate mismanagement and inefficiency and give lawmakers a chance to target the wasteful and poorly performing programs for elimination. 

For the last six years, Congress has failed to pass a complete federal budget before the start of the fiscal year.  Congress resorted to omnibus appropriations bills for six of the seven fiscal years from 1999 to 2005.  Almost 20 percent of the discretionary budget in fiscal 2006, or $159 billion, is unauthorized. 

Sen. Pete Domenici’s (R-N.M.) proposed legislation (S.877) for a biennial budget has 20 co-sponsors.  In May 2005, a similar bill in the House (H.R. 2644) was introduced by Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) and referred to the House Budget Committee.

“Currently, the budget process is rigged to promote more and more spending,” Schatz said.  “A biennial budget would provide a long-term perspective and allow members of Congress to devote more time in office to investigating more important matters, such as ways to make the government more efficient and effective.” 

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.